Related Stories

Email Anthony Furey at afurey@postmedia.com or call 416-947-2445 to tell him your hydro bill story. There's more to come. Much more. The politicians better be listening.

While the Blue Jays are soaring in popularity right now, one of the very people who built the Rogers Centre they play in is worried about paying the bills.

“I pay $110 more per month on my hydro bills than a year ago,” Toronto resident Lino Virira told me over the phone. And his usage hasn’t gone up at all. It’s rate increases. “I’m afraid with the way it’s going that I’m going to lose my house.”

Virira came to Canada from Portugal and worked here for 42 years before retiring. One of his jobs included cutting steel for Rogers Centre — known as the SkyDome when it opened in 1989.

“I paid off my mortgage, I put two kids through school. But now every month I’m afraid to open my hydro bill,” Virira said.

Ontarians who’ve got in touch with me to share their hydro headaches don’t know who to turn to for help.

Ken Smart, from Port Perry, called his Liberal MPP, Granville Anderson, three times until he received a call back.

“He called back once and tried to argue with me about how wonderful everything is in Ontario,” says Smart. “That’s the type of response I get from my MPP, who’s supposed to be representing me regardless of political stripe.”

The 69-year-old and his wife don’t use air conditioning and sometimes choose to go cold in the winter rather than turn on their expensive electric heat.

“I’m not partisan to any party, to tell you the truth,” Smart adds. However, he says “too bad we don’t have an election tomorrow or I’d be out beating the drum on every street.”

PC MPP KEEPS LIGHT ON LIBERALS

While the Toronto Sun’s hydro headaches series is only getting started, one Ontario MPP is already making sure the government can’t ignore it.

“The Liberal government has lost over 300,000 well-paying manufacturing jobs,” PC MPP Monte McNaughton said in question period Monday.

The critic for economic development read portions of a weekend Sun feature about the creation of the Coalition of Concerned Manufacturers of Ontario. It’s a grassroots initiative by local companies that banded together to combat government policies like energy rates that are putting their businesses at risk.

“Is it time to admit this government’s policies of expensive energy, over-regulation and high debt have led to hundreds of companies choosing to leave this province?” McNaughton added.

He cited as evidence the corporate welfare handouts the Liberals have doled out to various companies, as well as a recent trip he made to California where eight companies confirmed their interest in relocating to Ontario.

Meanwhile, out of the literally hundreds of stories Ontarians have shared with me, only one person said the situation “doesn’t seem too bad.”

Mark Cripps, of Hamilton, said via Twitter his bill was $114 for all of June and July and he ran the A/C all that time.

But after he posted the bill publicly, it became clear he was only citing the usage fee. After the delivery, regulatory and HST charges were added, the total came to $258.54.

I was confused why someone would understate their bill this way ... until I Googled his LinkedIn profile.

He’s the chief speech writer and spokesman for an Ontario cabinet minister. Cripps hadn’t disclosed he was a Liberal staffer when he first shared his story.